Browsing through the “startrek” tag on Flickr, one finds all sorts of fascinating fan photos, model setups, and acquisitions. Take a look:
Pandora Stares Out the Window
How to Sound Like Chewbacca
It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since sometime in the early 1990s. Back then, we were in Disneyland, fresh off Star Tours, when someone in the souvenir shop gave off a full-throated Wookiee roar. Wow, I thought, I wish I could do that. Later attempts — always in private, of course — would sound rather less than Chewbaccesque, and left me with only a sore throat. It seemed I would never be able to roar like a Wookiee.
Thanks to a few tips from AskMetafilter, plus a couple of hours’ practice, I can now produce something approximating a Wookiee roar. To do it, one simply needs to tilt his head back and gargle a tiny quantity of his own spit while executing the start of a yawn. The roar is helped by cracking the voice a bit at the start of the gargle.
It’s nowhere near the original sound effect, which, according to this sound design article, was based on various animal sounds, but it’s close enough to impress little kids at Star Tours.
Here’s the MP3 of me Chewbaccing. Download it and use it for anything you like.
Q Street Doggie
(q-st-doggie-1 uploaded by brownpau.)
Sad, forlorn-looking dog behind the fence of that big house at 20th and Q St NW, across from the Dupont Circle Metro exit. Aw!
Jules Verne, Old Earth Creationist
“192,000 years, my gallant Conseil, which significantly extends the biblical Days of Creation. What’s more, the formation of coal … and the cooling of basaltic rocks likewise call for a much longer period of time. I might add that those ‘days’ in the Bible must represent whole epochs and not literally the lapse of time between two sunrises, because according to the Bible itself, the sun doesn’t date from the first day of Creation.”
-Professor Aronnax, in Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” Book 1, Chapter 19.
Guess the Pun
Update: Yeah, you all guessed it: WHEN THE SITH HITS THE FAN.
What Amy and I Did Last Weekend
- Viewed paintings in Figuratively Speaking, The Human Form in American Art — an exhibit at The Corcoran.
- Lunched on siopao, dimsum, and yang chow fried rice at China Doll in Chinatown.
- Studied Asian Games in the Sackler Gallery.
- Watched Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at Gallery Place. (The book was better.)
- Dined on unagi sushi, california rolls, and miso soup at Wok ‘N Roll Sushi Bar and Chinese Restaurant, also in Chinatown.
- Celebrated Pentecost and learned about motorcycle engines at First Baptist DC.
- Rang the Memorial Bell at the National Japanese American Memorial.
- Viewed Gilbert Stuart’s portraits and the work of Hans Holbein at the National Gallery.
(Yeah, lots of art.)
Crepuscular Rays Over Northeast
Saw these lovely crepuscular rays shining through a layer of stratocumulus perlucidus clouds over Union Station and Northeast DC earlier this morning.
(crepuscular1 uploaded by brownpau.)
Maiden Middles and their Initials
Name-hyphenation! Valerie doesn’t like it, but Amy and I plan to hyphenate our surnames. Imagine the fun people will have taking messages from the “Koslowski-Ordovezas!” Even without hyphenation, though, Filipino tradition dictates the woman keeping her maiden name as a middle name, and passing it down as a middle name to the children. Plus, I’ve known one or two husbands who adopted their own wives’ maiden names for their own middle names as a gesture of oneness. All I know is, should Amy and I marry, the “K.O.” initials are just too tempting to pass up: the baby-name acronym possibilities are endless! Valerie has a few suggestions.
Seventh Street NW Oddities
Coming out of CVS at 7th and H St NW, this strange juxtaposition of geometries leapt out at me. This area has changed a lot in the past three years, hasn’t it?
I thought this sign was some kind of parody, but it turns out there really is a philanthropic fraternal organization called The Independent Order of Odd Fellows. As near as I can tell they’re something like the Freemasons crossed with the Rotary Club. Or something.